


Burning in the Rain

by enigma731



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Developing Relationship, Early Days, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 01:49:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11071521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: “Hey,” says Peter. “When’s the last time someone patched you up?”“Never,” Gamora answers simply, her jaw set, the finality of the word jarring.“Never?” he echoes, though he doesn’t doubt the sincerity of it. “So that makes me your first?”A bit of post-Vol. 1 hurt/comfort.





	Burning in the Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [invisibledaemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisibledaemon/gifts).



> Yeah, I know I'm three years late. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The aftermath of holding an Infinity Stone turns out to be an awful lot like sticking your finger in an electric socket.

Or at least that’s what Peter imagines it’s like, seeing as how he’s never been quite foolish enough to actually do the latter. Close, but not quite.

The Nova Corps is nothing if not efficient, multiple emergency units arriving on the scene of the fight before the heat of the Stone’s even managed to dissipate. The team’s found themselves whisked away to accommodations usually reserved for visiting dignitaries, with the promise that they’ll be granted a meeting with Nova Prime as soon as the situation in the city’s been stabilized. The quarters they’re given look something like a hotel suite, one large common area in the middle with a private bedroom and bathroom off each corner. In a clearer state of mind, Peter might recognize the meaning of this number, of the fact that they don’t need a fifth anymore.

As it is, his entire body’s screaming with pain and exhaustion by the time they arrive, the adrenaline that made him feel like an actual superhero for a few minutes now leaving him weak and nauseated in its wake. It’s all he can do to select the nearest room, kick off his boots, and collapse facedown on the bed.

He’s dimly aware of voices out in the main room, of some kind of discussion being had, but he doesn’t have the energy to focus or care. There are still faded shapes on the backs of his eyelids, as though he might have been staring at a very bright light for far too long. Which, come to think of it, is not that far from the truth. The pain is a searing heat that starts in his face as he comes down off the high, off the shock, and crawls along the back of his neck, down his back, until it covers his entire body.

Peter is good at ignoring physical discomfort, usually. Growing up with the Ravagers, sleep was his best friend, his favorite escape from the unpleasant realities of the world. But today it seems to have abandoned him, leaves him wondering whether his body might be choosing _now_ to remember that it’s mortal, supposed to be dying after the stunt he pulled with the Stone. He buries his face deeper into the pillow and tries to will himself out of consciousness.

“I can tell you’re not asleep,” comes Gamora’s voice after an indeterminate period of time.

Peter grunts in response without raising his head or opening his eyes, hopes that if he stays still long enough, she might go away. Any other time, he thinks, he’d be thrilled to have her attention, but right now the thought of moving even slightly sounds like pure agony.

“Peter,” she says more firmly, and he can hear her moving closer. “You just responded to me. You’re not asleep.”

“No I didn’t,” he mumbles into the pillow, his voice muffled.

“Oh, so you talk coherently in your sleep?”

He feels the mattress dip as she sits on the edge of it, and that finally motivates him enough to roll onto his side and open his eyes, which he immediately regrets. “Ow.”

“Yes,” she agrees, giving him an appraising look. “I imagine it does hurt.”

Peter sucks in a breath, realizes suddenly just how close she is and how pathetic he probably looks. “Did you need something, or…?”

“Our hosts left us first aid supplies,” she answers, gesturing to the kit in her lap that he’s managed not to notice. “Seems like you might want to make use of it.”

He nods dumbly, manages to shift over enough so that she can open the kit on the bed, then finds himself staring helplessly at its contents. There are several bottles of pills, antiseptic, rolls of gauze, and something that appears to be ointment. He thinks this probably ought to be straightforward enough, but between the pain and the unfamiliar injuries, he feels as though his head is filled with molasses.

Gamora studies him for a moment, then sighs. “Sit up.”

Peter obeys with a minimum of groaning, watches as she ducks into the bathroom and comes back with a paper cup of water, which she hands to him.

She picks up one of the bottles and shakes two pills into the cap. “Take these. They should knock the edge off the pain.”

He swallows the pills, wills them to work quickly. The silence sits heavily between them, and he searches for something, anything to say. It isn’t like him to be quiet, but right now words are eluding him, the enormity of everything that’s just happened resting on his chest.

“We should clean those burns,” Gamora says finally, apparently realizing that she’s going to have to take the lead here. “Strip.”

Peter blinks at her, actually wonders for a moment whether he’s misheard. “What?”

She gets to her feet, crosses her arms as though she might be preparing to intimidate him into this. “Strip, so I can see where you’re burned. Unless you were planning on wearing the bandages over your clothes. I’ll admit, I don’t know much about Terran physiology.”

He snorts despite himself, then winces when it sends a fresh wave of pain prickling across his face. This, he’s rapidly realizing, is going to really, really suck for a few days at least. He hesitates one moment longer, then decides he didn’t exactly have any dignity to begin with and struggles out of his jacket and shirt. Ditching his pants requires standing up, which is a surprising amount of effort, and involves some clumsy hopping that probably would be embarrassing if it didn’t hurt quite so damn much.

Peter spares half a second to wonder whether he ought to be self-conscious -- being nearly naked (or more) in front of an attractive woman is certainly not unfamiliar territory, but Gamora is different. They’re partners now. Teammates. Someone he’s definitely going to see again in the morning, and whose respect he’d really like to keep. His thoughts don’t stay on his state of undress for long, though, because then he looks down at himself and becomes aware for the first time of the true extent of the burns. They’re worst on his hand, where the Stone actually touched his skin, radiating up his neck, out across his torso, nearly all the way down to his knees.

He swallows hard. “Looks bad, doesn’t it.”

Gamora shrugs, though he thinks he might detect at least a hint of empathy in her face. “I have heard that Terrans are fragile.”

“Hey,” says Peter, feeling suddenly defensive, “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“Against your better efforts, apparently," she says, then softens almost imperceptibly. “The analgesic cream should help, but the burns need to be cleaned first.”

He nods, allows her to usher him into the small bathroom, where she finds a washcloth in one of the drawers. She runs it under cool water, then pours a few drops of the antiseptic solution which immediately expand into an impressive amount of powder blue foam.

“Whoa,” says Peter, surprised by the reaction and suddenly aware of the fact that he probably would have dumped enough on the cloth to fill the entire bathroom with suds. “How’d you know it was going to do that?”

She gives him an indulgent look. “I read the instructions on the bottle.”

“Oh,” he says dumbly. “Right.”

She takes a few steps closer, and Peter feels his stomach dip as he suddenly realizes that she’s planning to clean the wounds herself.

“I can do it,” he offers weakly, mostly because he still has enough pride left to want to avoid looking _completely_ helpless. Not much, but enough.

“This is probably going to be a bit uncomfortable,” says Gamora, ignoring him entirely. She closes the rest of the distance between them, reaches up and presses the washcloth to the first of the burns on his face. “Look down for me. Try not to pull away.”

Peter does as he’s instructed, sets his jaw and hisses softly as she puts pressure on the raw skin. He’s prepared for this to be an experience of pure torture, based solely on the way the burns feel _without_ anyone touching or attempting to clean them. Plus, Gamora is not exactly the most nurturing person he’s ever met. In fact, the thought crosses his mind that if she happened to still be interested in killing him, this would be a prime opportunity.

Her touch turns out to be surprisingly gentle, though, cautious, almost practiced. He spends several long minutes with his attention focused on her hands, which look impossibly small and and delicate now, on the contrast of her skin against his, on the way she twists the cloth around her fingers, uses the curve of her knuckles to carefully lift the dirt from the wounds. He loses track of how much time has passed when he shifts his attention and catches sight of her face, sees her brow furrowed with rapt concentration and an emotion he can’t quite identify, something almost tender.

He’s still studying her when she finishes with the antiseptic, glances up and catches him looking. “What?”

Peter shakes his head. “Just--You’re good at this. Which is lucky for me.”

“Shocking, I know,” she says dryly, and doesn’t give him the chance to say anything further before she ducks back out into the main room to grab the cream and gauze.

“Hey, I didn’t say that!” he calls after her, poking his head out the doorway to watch as she heads back toward him.

“You didn’t have to,” she says pointedly, depositing the rest of the supplies onto the counter. “Turn around, I’m going to do your back first.”

A non-zero part of him still wants to protest, but the last thing he wants right now is to turn this into an argument. Plus, he doesn’t exactly get the chance, because the next thing he knows, her fingers are against his skin, spreading on the ointment, and he’s absolutely incapable of focusing on anything else. The cream tingles as it comes into contact with his exposed nerve endings, feels cool at first, then evolves into a pleasant warmth, the agony he’s been feeling melting away. Muscles he hasn’t realized were holding tension begin to relax, and he lets his eyes fall closed.

“Feel better?” she asks, apparently noticing his reaction, the way he’s begun longing for sleep again, now that it actually seems attainable.

He nods, cracks one eye open and finds her preparing to apply the cream to the burns on his face. Peter dips his head for her again, feels his breath hitch at the sensation of her fingers against his cheek. It’s just the cream that feels good, he tells himself, just gratitude for having the pain go away.

“Your face should be okay like this,” says Gamora, putting down the tube of cream and wiping her hands on a towel. “We should put gauze over the rest.”

“Glad you think my face is _okay_ ,” says Peter, unable to stop himself. He waggles his eyebrows at her. “I mean, I get that a lot, but it’s extra special coming from you.”

“Glad to see your sense of humor is as terrible as always,” she retorts, unrolling gauze and beginning to apply it to his hand, his wrist, up his arm.

“Hey,” he says again, but can’t seem to manage a better comeback at the moment.

She pauses to examine the way the first set of bandages has adhered to his skin, and sighs softly. “The Stone should have killed you. I know that you know that.”

“Yeah,” says Peter, unsure of where she’s going with this, but also fairly certain that he doesn’t care as long as she continues taking care of him, as long as she continues being gentle.

“And you still caught it,” she points out, not a question. She holds a piece of gauze up to one of the burns on his chest, gives it an appraising look before cleanly tearing off an appropriately-sized piece with nothing but the strength of her fingers.

“Yeah,” he repeats, trying to ignore the way his brain is filing away that little maneuver as a serious turn-on. “What else was I gonna do?”

She shakes her head. “Sometimes I think I have spent my entire life just trying not to die.”

“I mean,” says Peter, swallowing as she works down his abdomen with the gauze. “I haven’t exactly _not_ tried not to die.”

She kneels effortlessly to bandage the burns on his legs, glancing up at him as her hair falls over her shoulder. “Today you were ready to sacrifice yourself for a planet full of strangers.”

He considers for a moment as she finishes with the gauze, half hoping his silence will make her linger over the task. “So were you,” he points out finally. “I seem to recall you saying it would be an honor to die among friends.”

She straightens, turns her back for a moment as she puts the gauze down and takes a set of clean clothes -- generic sweats from the linen closet -- and hands them to him. “Here. Put these on. You’re done.”

Peter pulls on the pants, then realizes she’s about to leave, to head back to her own room or maybe to wherever the others have gone. He sets the shirt he’s just been handed down on the counter, catches her arm instead. “Wait.”

She jerks out of his grasp reflexively, turns around to face him again. “What?”

There are burns on her face too, he knows, down her neck as well, probably as extensive as his own. He gestures to them vaguely. “What about you?”

She shrugs. “My regeneration implant will take care of this.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “Yeah? How long is that gonna take?”

She shrugs again, avoiding his gaze. “Twelve hours or so. None of these burns are particularly deep, judging by yours.”

“So,” he presses, “you planning on just being in pain that whole time?”

“Pain doesn’t bother me,” she insists, moving to walk past him again.

Peter blocks the doorway, putting both hands on the frame. “Gamora, come on. You patched me up, let me return the favor.”

She hesitates, one hand on the zipper of her suit, clearly considering.

“No sorcery,” he promises, holding up both palms and watching as the barest hint of a smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Strictly medical, I swear.”

“I still have my blades,” she points out, though she unclips them from her belt, laying them on the counter before quickly and efficiently stripping down to undergarments.

He swallows, tries to focus on the pattern of her injuries, which mirrors his own, and not on the taut muscles of her abdomen, the way her hair looks curling around her bare shoulders, the unfamiliar look of vulnerability on her face. He forces himself to turn to the sink and find a fresh washcloth. He isn’t nearly as poised as she was, pours too much of the antiseptic despite having watched her minutes before, and ends up with half a sink full of foam.

“Look up,” he tells her, aware that it’s the exact opposite of the instructions she gave him, before. He rests one hand on her shoulder, uses the other to begin cleaning the dirt and ash from the wound on her temple.

She shudders under his touch, the movement small but rocking all the way down the length of her body.

“Hey,” says Peter, as he works his way down her neck, across the curve of her clavicle, because he needs to keep his mind focused on the task at hand. Letting it wander right now would be dangerous, he knows, and unfair to her besides. “When’s the last time someone patched you up?”

“Never,” she says simply, her jaw set, the finality of the word jarring.

“Never?” he echoes, though he doesn’t doubt the sincerity of it. “So that makes me your first?”

She rolls her eyes. “You’ll be shocked to know that Thanos wasn’t big on comfort. If I was foolish enough to let myself be injured, I deserved to feel the discomfort while waiting for my body to heal itself.”

Peter winces, puts the washcloth down and picks up the tube of cream. “You know that’s bullshit, right? It’s twisted.”

“It’s the way I was raised,” she says flatly, her gaze tracking his every movement as he begins to apply the cream.

Her skin is surprisingly warm under his fingers, and not just because of the injuries themselves, just a simple truth about her that requires this level of proximity to learn. He wonders for a moment what else there is to know.

“It’s cruel,” he insists. “And you’re free now. You can have whatever you want, including a super suave Terran to patch you up after you kick some ass.”

“I’m free for the moment,” Gamora amends, handing him the roll of gauze as he finishes with the cream.

He glances down at her as he applies the first bandage to her neck. “You don’t think it’ll last?”

She carefully evades his gaze, fixing it instead on her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Nothing lasts. Not forever.”

Peter sighs, can’t quite deny the sobering reality of that. His life so far is practically a testament. “Well, guess that’s more reason to enjoy the present, then.”

“How do you do that?” she asks, looking back at him as he crouches down to bandage her lower body.

He blinks. “Do what?”

Gamora shakes her head, looks puzzled. “Your life -- what little I know of it -- hasn’t been happy. And yet, somehow, _you_ are.”

Peter considers for a long moment, caught off-guard by the question. “I don’t know. I guess I just figured -- well, why not?”

“You’re strange,” she tells him, pulling on her own set of sweats as soon as he’s finished with the gauze. “You like your life, and yet you’d give it up willingly. You tell me I deserve comfort, yet you were doing nothing to find it for yourself when I came in here. You have love for people who have been unkind to you.”

He squirms under her scrutiny, unaccustomed to anyone paying this sort of attention to him. She’s not wrong, though, and he isn’t about to disagree.

“Yeah,” he nods. “Weird’s pretty much always summed me up. And, you know, Legendary. That goes with the Star-Lord part.”

Gamora rolls her eyes and finally slips past him, which Peter takes as his cue to return to the bed. This time it’s considerably more comfortable, but he can sense that she’s still in the room with him, and that’s enough to keep him awake at least for a few minutes longer. When he looks up again, she’s standing in the doorway, looking vaguely lost.

“Hey,” says Peter, deciding to go out on a limb of sorts. He pats the space on the bed beside him, certain he’s headed for another rebuff. “You want to watch some of the news coverage? I bet they’re saying really nice things about us.”

To his surprise, she simply nods curtly, crosses the room, and stretches out on top of the covers, half a foot of space between them. He tries to keep a lid on his grin as he grabs the remote from the bedside table and switches on the large viewscreen that fills the wall opposite them.

She waits until he’s started channel surfing, then reaches out and touches his shoulder very lightly.

“Thank you,” she whispers, nearly too softly to hear.


End file.
